Life Along the Streetcar with Tom Heath from The Heath Team Nova Home Loans

This week, we’re going to speak with Cindy Meier and Joe McGrath, they are the founders of the Rogue Theatre, just off a Fourth Avenue. They met in 2002 at a play reading, and turned a mutual love of drama into a cultural force in Tucson.

Today is May 8th, Happy Mother’s Day, my name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to “Life Along the Streetcar”.

Each and every Sunday our focus is on Social, Cultural and Economic impacts in Tucson’s Urban Core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From A Mountain to the UArizona and all stops in between, you get the inside track- right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on DowntownRadio.org- we’re also available on your iPhone or Android using our very own Downtown Radio app.  Reach us by email [email protected] — interact with us on Facebook at LifeAlongTheStreetcar and follow us on Twitter @StreetcarLife

Our intro music is by Ryanhood and we exit with music from Ryan Bingham, “Tell My Mother I Miss Her So.”

Transcript

Good morning. It’s a beautiful sunny in the Old Pueblo and you’re listening to Katy DT Tucson that you’re spending part of your brunch. Our with us on your downtown Tucson Community sponsored rock and roll radio station.

This week, we’re going to speak with Cindy Meier and Joe McGrath, they are the founders of the Rogue Theatre, just off a Fourth Avenue. They met in 2002 at a play reading, and turned a mutual love of drama into a cultural force in Tucson.

Today is May 8th 2022. It’s Mother’s Day. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life along the streetcar each and every Sunday, our focus on social cultural and economic impacts. And Tucson’s Urban core. We shed light on hidden gems. Everyone should know about from a mountain to you Arizona and all stops in between. You got the inside track right here on 98.1 FM streaming a downtown. Dot org also available on your iPhone or Android by using our very own at Downtown Radio Tucson app. And of course on the show, you can email us contact at

Life along the streetcar dot org. Probably the best way to connect with us on our social media, Instagram and Facebook, or URL website. Lifelong streetcar dot-org has all of our past episodes and the podcast is just about anywhere. You can find those fabulous podcast here. And of course if you just want to be lazy and tell your smart speaker to play Life along the streetcar podcast, it should pop up. Well, we’re going to talk about theaters. Today. We’re going to start with the Scottish Rite Cathedral. They actually have a performance coming up next Saturday the 14th. It’s called skullduggery lovely lies and devious Delights. You can check out more. I found the the details on the down. And to son dot org website under events, but this is the carnival volusion presenting a magical night with skullduggery. It’s a top-rated show and they are said to be revitalizing Magic by blending old world prestidigitation, like to say that word with the charm of Vaudeville inspired Road shows more details

on the website there and you can head over to the Scottish Rite on Saturday, all your in this Theater mood, our guests today, are the founders of the Rogue theater. We had a chance to just talk earlier this week by phone with Sidney, Myer, and Joe McGrath. They met in 2001 2002 at a play reading. Hit it off decided. They, they wanted to put together a place where they could do some various serious Masterworks. And they overtime put together a crew a cast and the company eventually took over. Were the auditorium at the former YWCA? It’s a stork building their own University. Just west of Fourth Avenue. They took over that Auditorium, gives them the flexibility to create a different type of stage 4 in seating area for each one of their performances. So, really enjoyed going there for shows, and wanted to learn more about the history of this. And I think you are going to enjoy our interview as well. This is sending Meyer and Joe McGrath of the Rogue

theater, I’m Cindy Meyers. I’m one of the cofounders of the Rogue theater and it’s managing director

and I’m Joe McGrath as I’m the other co-founder of the Rogue theater, and I’m the artistic director.

So, the two co-founders. This is kind of exciting for me. Tell me a little bit about this, this journey. Did you know each other before the Rogue or was this sort of your for a together into this world?

We met a couple of years before the Rogue started. We were both actors in town and we were doing a play reading together actually. And while we were waiting to go on stage for the play reading, we were down at the Arizona theater company and Joe turned to me and said, hey, have you ever wanted to do a moon for the misbegotten? And I said, I’ve always wanted to do a moon for the misbegotten. And I thought Joe was some big producer who is going to be in one of his plays. And actually what what it turned out is that we started rehearsing Act 2 of Eugene, O’Neill’s a moon for the misbegotten. I was working at Pima college at the time and we would find an Open Class room. And we every Monday night, Joe would come over and we would rehearse Act 2 of a moon. Musta gotten. And that was, that was just a

pure labor of love. We have no plan to perform it anywhere or any thoughts about what we might do with that. We just wanted to say the words and live the lives of Josie Hogan and and James Jamie Tyrone. So that was, that was a interesting, interesting. Circumstance. Cindy, says she thought, maybe I was some big fancy producer. She didn’t know that. She was the big fancy producer actor.

What time frame was this? When did you, when did you meet

at least? It was about 2001-2002, something like

that because you have to fast forward a couple of years. You’re you’re rehearsing and decide. You know what? Let’s just go ahead and open up a theater.

Yeah, I remember one day we were out in the parking lot after rehearsing and Joe said to me, you know, for Going to keep doing this. We should get some other people involved. So we decided what the heck life is short. Let’s, um, let’s do it. Let’s create a

theater as I understand it. Yeah. Opening a theater is getting some other people involved

at its current location at the historic wire. Did you have like a an interim spot or did you just know this was the place to

go? Well, for four years, we were an itinerant company. So we would perform upstairs at the Temple of Music and Art In The Cabaret theater, and then we would also perform it. What was the Zusi Theater, which is in the same building that we’re now in? But in 2009, we decided it’s time to get serious and and have a real place. And so we started renting. This gymnasium. What was the gymnasium here in the Historic Y.

Yeah, and that came, that came from the realization after four years. The audience has audience, don’t audiences, don’t think of theater as being who, as much as they think of it as being aware. And so actually getting an address and getting our own theater, was going to be critical to us continuing and and it really is It turned out that way, you know, people people know where we are now and in when they think of the road, they think of this particular building this particular room

with the, with the great Lobby and the good cookies as you mentioned. And

I was so what I’ve seen, I don’t see every place. I’ve seen a handful of plays, I think at the Rogue theaters in the way. It’s set up, at least for the the performances that I’ve seen. It’s an intimate setting where the stage is almost a lot of cases. Dead by by the seating. So you get a really interesting Vantage Point depending on where you’re sitting seated,

right? We often use what’s called a Thrust configuration where the audience is on three sides. But sometimes we do proscenium where the audience is on one side of the room, in the actors on the other. And sometimes we do it in the round. We’ve done a lot of different configurations, which is one of the great advantages of having a black box theater, is that you can Move the risers around and create different spaces for the places plays to live in

and we’ve been pretty energetic about going ahead and shifting those those configurations for the demands of the individual play. That’s the most important thing is that we put the audience in the relationship with the actor to make the play really work for them. So,

it’s interesting use the word relationship and I mean, it makes sense, but when it what I’ve The Rogue theater to folks that may not have been there. One of the things I will say is that if the if the performers on stage, if the characters are having a tense moment, if there’s if they’re arguing, I am was feeling not almost, I feel uncomfortable. Like I’m intruding on this. Like I should not be here. What? I don’t want to be this close to the action

of the space. Really does make you involved in the in the

play. We’ll have to get you in for one of our sword fights.

I will, I will grant gracefully decline that

the entire time. Does it rotate. Do you have the same sort of group that puts on each one of these plays?

We have about a dozen company members who we put in all the plays throughout the whole season that that company has changed over the years. As people have, you know moved out of town or decided they wanted to get a real job a or whatever. The the calculation is, but there are there’s a dozen of us that work throughout the whole Reason together

and how many shows are in a typical

season? We usually do fives during the regular season from May to September and sometimes we do or excuse me, September to May and sometimes we do a summer show, but the last couple of years we

haven’t, we’ll be right back to our interview with a Sidney Myer and Joe McGrath of the eroica theater, but first of all, I want to remind you that you’re listening to lifelong the streetcar on downtown radio, 98.1 FM and available for streaming on Downtown Radio. Dot-org. This podcast is sponsored by the mortgage guidance group and Nova Home Loans. If you enjoyed this podcast, keep listening or head over to Life along the streetcar dot-org for all of our past episodes current events and things to do. While visiting Tucson, Tom Heath and Among Us number 18, 24 2010, Oba animal. S number 308. 7bk number, 09:02, 429 Equal, Housing Opportunity.

Probably heard before the break a little bit about the history of Cindy and Joe the Rogue theater, and now we’re going to get into their performances and how they choose the works that they do and what we can expect for the remainder of this season. And what we’re actually going to see coming up next season, which starts in September. And how do you select the The Works that you’re going to be performing is that you and Joe sit down and tell everybody, your do you get together as a group and, and decide

we have a actually Christopher Johnson had is now the assistant artistic director. And, and, of course, Cindy described yourself as a managing director, but she’s also, the o.c. Associate artistic director. So there’s there’s essentially three of us. Who are working together to come up with each season? We’re we’re, we really like to work with great literature and and challenging challenging ideas for our audience. So we’re were, we’re not strictly entertainment oriented. And that doesn’t mean that that we don’t always have an eye. On how well do evenings going and and and whether our audience is still with us because that’s that’s critically important for really getting across great literature. But we take a lot with great literature. As everybody knows we do one Shakespeare a year. It’s just always good to touch base with Shakespeare. And and so we also do a Temptations which is something that Cindy is particularly. Skilled at a Temptations of pieces of literature and this work that we’re

doing right now. Mrs. Dalloway is probably the most challenging thing that she’s done so far except perhaps Moby-Dick, which was the last thing that Cindy adapted. So we’re not shy about taking on things that people might say, you can’t adapt that for the stage. Side, well, maybe we want to try and do that and, and we have and we’ve done it with some success. So we’re pretty, we’re pretty happy about that. But, anyway, great literature, either of either of stage literature or of written literature adapted for the stage is really the core of what we do.

So you’re doing right now the, there’s a through, I think it was May 15th. The current performance was mrs. Dalloway, which is a novel by Virginia Woolf and and what I’m understanding that is What you’re performing is your own adaptation. It’s not not like it’s been converted to a play and you’ve just picked up the script. You’re actually changing it from the the book form to the play.

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been working on the adaptation for a little over a year and as we’ve been rehearsing we’ve been developing the adaptation developing ways to Stage it with the whole cast. A whole company. And so, it’s a, it’s been a very creative project. It’s not just a play that we picked up and, and we’re rehearsing the parts for we were

really creating

almost a kind of new art form with it, with, with the play with the

novel. And that’s one of the interesting things about this adventure, the Cindy. And I have embarked on is, you know, there are two kinds of works that we do. Do here one, we have affectionately turned a termed, just add water. And

those are plays that have

been performed. Their proven, the entrances and exits are all set. Theatrical devices are all clear on how they work. We just finished, for example, Death of a Salesman, which you could say. Is it just Add Water play, although it takes a lot of

water.

I have a lot of water. Whereas mrs. Dalloway is this, this script has never ever been done before. So the rehearsal process is is not trying to figure out how somebody else made it work. It’s trying to figure out how to make it work on your own, so it with our own voices. So that’s that’s one of the interesting and wonderful challenges of what we’ve been up to.

I think the last play may have seen there was Grapes of Wrath and it was a While ago, and I remember, I remember sitting in the, in the, in the audience in, there were no props it. Everything was was, I don’t know what the word is, but mind. So by the actors, but it was so well done. You know, I mean, I could visualize it, I could see it, but I’m thinking to myself, there’s nothing physical there. They’re just acting in describing and I was just so impressed with with that.

Yeah, and that’s, you know, whenever we go to the theater. We bring our imaginations with us. But with something like The Grapes of Wrath, we’re asking you to imagine even more and it has a really interesting effect on an audience member. If you’re asked to imagine the joads car for instance, even though we just got some chairs and tables together for their trip across the u.s. When you imagine what the car looks like you invest yourself into. The play and it becomes your creation to. It’s not just what the actors are doing for you, but it’s what you’re doing in the audience to complete the picture.

And it’s almost like reading the novel because you are when you’re reading it. You don’t have those images, you have to create those images. And so when you’re seeing a play, a lot of times, you’re given those images, but with that particular one, it was like reading reading the novel but you’re all the voices in my head.

Yeah. Yeah.

It is like reading and it’s like, radio because radio plays has are the same way where you conjure the imagery in your head as you hear the sounds

and and like Cindy says, if

you become committed to what you’re imagining, and of course, one of the fascinating things, of course, is it’s a community imagination as well. So there you are in the room of 150 other people in, you know, in the semi-darkness. Dark, and you’re all imagining from what you see in front of you. And it’s really, it’s really an exciting thing to be able to be able to do it that way. That’s, that’s really very much. What the theater, what the theater has to offer, as distinct from what you might see on screens on television and film? It, it encourages you what brings you to the edge of your seat, and, and helps you work to to imagine things. For yourself and be engaged in making the image yourself. I like to tell the audience. Sometimes they are the artists and we’re just provocateurs. So

well we have mrs. Dalloway is going to be running it through May 15th. And then you’re going to take a break. I’m assuming, if it’s taken you this long to work on the adaptations. You already have the next season, sort of mapped out that starts in September.

Yeah, we do in September. We’re going to be doing Sweat by Lynn nottage, which is a fairly contemporary play. I think it was written just a few years ago. And it’s a, it’s a really beautiful hard-hitting. Play about Factory workers in Pennsylvania and what they go through when the factory changes,

its rules essentially. It’s a great play. There is a great play. Then in November will be doing Great Expectations by Charles Dickens of an adaptation by Joe Clifford. And it’s a really, this is a really fun and interesting adaptation. We don’t always do our own literature at it tastes and sometimes we pick up what other people have been up to in their literary adaptations and Great Expectations. This is a great adaptation of that particular story and it’s a story of hip and Miss havisham, and all those wonderful character of Charles. Dickens.

And then, in January, we’re going to be doing Babette’s Feast, which many people recognize that title because of the film from probably 30 years ago, 30 or 40 years ago, but it’s based on a short story by isak, Dinesen, but adapted to the stage by Rose Courtney. And it’s a, it’s a great. Story about two sisters in Norway who have a very interesting French

cook.

Yeah. It’s better to face is going to be a lovely, lovely evening at the theater, Seafarer. In March. We’re going to be doing the Seafarer by Connor McPherson last year. We did a play called the we’re by Connor McPherson and Lila. We loved it so much. We had to return to that voice. It’s two brothers in, in Dublin, on Christmas Eve, are visited by some, some pretty interesting and, and intimidating people. It’s very Irish and dark, and Rich and, and lovely. And so, we’re looking forward to that one.

And then in the spring, and April May we’re going to be doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So that’ll be a fun way to end the season. One of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays.

I think that very recognizable. I think if you’re if you’re even a novice and to Shakespeare, you’re going to recognize Ya Fuckin the king there. So we talked about the theater being a where and you’re in a very interesting location. You are just west of Fourth Avenue and University and the former historic. Why And you’ve converted the auditorium into the play and that gives you that adaptability. That’s fantastic.

Yeah, we this has just been a wonderful location for us and and we are really close to the streetcar. So people can ride the streetcar down here who I and it’s just been nice to be, you know, near the university but also near downtown and it just does a it’s a great location and we have a parking lot that’s important for people to know. Because people always wonder well, where do I park when I go down there and we’ve got we’ve got a little parking lot off the alley next to the

theater. And for more information. What are you? What’s like your website you have social media? How do people find us find you?

Yeah. We’re on Facebook. We’re on Instagram. Our website is www.logfurnitureplace.com org and theater is spelt the snooty British way. Ta ta TR e, the Rogue theater and and you can also call our box office and and get in touch with us that way.

Fantastic. So it’s any Meyer Joe McGrath e the cofounders of the Rogue theater and they are bringing culture to Life along the streetcar. We are so grateful for you to spend a little time with us today. We’ll get this on the air then I think will rebroadcast it in as we get closer. To your launch in September as well.

Oh, thank you so much Tom. It’s a real. It’s a real pleasure to be able to do this. And thank you for inviting us to do

it. Thanks a lot. Tom. It really is an honor that you were interested in talking to us.

That was Joe McGrath. He was with Sidney Myer. They are the founders of the Rogue theater here in Tucson. Looking forward to heading out to their last play of this season and very interested in the first play. Next season with sweat. My name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to Life along the streetcar on downtown radio 98.1 FM and available for streaming on Downtown Radio dot-org. This podcast is sponsored by the mortgage guidance group and Nova Home Loans. If you enjoyed this podcast, keep listening or head over the Life along the streetcar dot-org for all of our past episodes current events and things to do. While visiting Tucson, Tom Heath and Among Us number 18, 24 2010, Oba animal. S number 308. 7bk number, 09:02, 429 Equal, Housing Opportunity.

And that’s going to do it for episode at 201. But before we head out, I want to thank mr. D.j. Bank, the musical bum. He stepped up. Last week. We had some technical difficulties, couldn’t get the show put together in time. And I said, hey Bank wants you. Let’s play a little music and he said, man, I would love to do that. Got to spin the art of easing for another half hour and I am sure the anybody that tuned in was super happy to hear that art of using, one of my favorite shows on Downtown Radio. Well, it’s May 8, Mother’s Day. And we want to send a huge shout out to all you mothers out there. Thank you for everything you did are doing and will do. I’m going to leave you a little music today, by a gentleman named Ryan Bingham. So, from a 2009 album, This is called. Tell my mother, I miss her. So have a great week and tune in next time for more Life along the streetcar.

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